In my case, I am always prepared to stand in line, because there is what there is, but it is not enough for everyone.
We have to eat whatever there is, otherwise we'll starve.
Miriam, retired teacher, grandmother of an 11-year-old minor , resident in Havana, and daughter of an 87-year-old woman also from Havana.
Can you describe your state of health?
In the case of my grandson, he is a child who since he was born has been an extremely allergic child, who debuted with small asthma attacks, which could be controlled with pulmonary therapies, so by not giving him the attacks, everything sprouts for him. the skin.
My 87-year-old mother is diabetic, hypertensive, heart disease and underwent surgery for a malignant kidney tumor that she had to remove.
How long have you been presenting this status?
The child, since he was one month old, began to present allergic problems. First with the changes in the weather and the insect bites, and later as the foods were added to him, he began to become allergic to them.
My mother started having her hypertension problems after 50 years, diabetes after 55 and ischemic heart disease too. At the age of 82, the tumor was detected in the kidney and she was operated on at the moment.
Has your condition been enhanced or aggravated by eating conditions? Can you describe to us in what way or way?
My grandson's state of health has worsened over the years and the food situation, as he is limited to eating many products and those he can eat are scarce, or sometimes there are but at a price that is not in accordance with our purchasing power .For example, he cannot eat sausages, shellfish, chocolate, strawberries, black beans, any citrus (such as lemon, orange, tangerine, pineapple, tomato, guava), he cannot eat soy. Neither can you eat canned products, or soft drinks from sachets, or carbonated drinks.
The child should take his antihistamine twice a day. He has gone through all those that exist here and only Chlorphenamine is the one that has settled him,But this medicine has not been available in a pharmacy for more than a year, we are getting it from people who bring it from abroad and sell it, but there is not always or we do not always have the money to pay the exaggerated prices they have.My daughter receives a salary of 1600 MN pesos and her father does not take care of them, he does not support them at all.
On the other hand, as the little he can eat is scarce or very expensive, we find ourselves in need of giving him what we can buy, and since he has become such an anxious child because he eats a lot and is obese .He was treated in a nutrition consultation, he was put on a diet which is very difficult for us to comply with because some products are not available, others cannot be eaten and others are very expensive. In the end, what you eat the most without feeling good are carbohydrates, flours.
My mom due to diabetes is also limited to many foods and needs a healthy diet.She has found herself in the same situation because her medicines are scarce and the diet is difficult to comply with, before she had a powdered milk diet but she hasn't been given it for a year now.
Do you need any specific food for your condition? Which? Is it difficult for you to acquire the products that you consider essential for your diet?
Important for the child's diet are meat, eggs (they give him 7 for the month), chicken, vegetables such as beets, carrots, lettuce, cucumber, beans, cabbage, apples, fruits, in short, products that are not very abundant and that when they exist they are very expensive.
Does this food represent an additional cost in your food expenses? What alternative ways or channels do you use to “solve” it?
Of course, feeding them represents an additional expense,When we can, we buy the MLC that are currently at 1 x 100, or when a relative can send us, we buy in those stores that don't have much variety and the prices are quite high, they go up more every day. Last week the yogurt doubled its price in stores in MLC. We also buy by the so-called black bag. Likewise, those who sell do so with a price that can be 3 or 4 times above its real value.
Does this diet need additional exercises in its preparation that you could describe?
tomato, mayonnaise, snack paste. They make you believe that you have a choice, but you don't. In the end you sacrifice yourself to minimize yourself with what there is and not with and not with what you want, that's where half of my expenses go because you buy minced beef, some cans of pressed meat, all of that with prices that are extremely expensive, I say they are punishing prices. Finally, I do not receive work incentives because I am, as I told you, a self-employed worker.
The black market before COVID-19 was the main way to acquire everything, now it is avoided to the point of hunger and need because it is extremely expensive
Due to the shortage during COVID, there are some stores that were formerly establishments in CUC, which today have become in national currency (MN), there the State assigns you some essential products that could be used if they were not restricted, I'm talking about chicken, sausages and normado mincemeat. They give it in a very controlled way using the supply book and in insufficient quantities. Now you can visit those stores to purchase them once a month. They started weekly, they continued fortnightly and now it is once a month, the sacrifice to access the products due to the queues is sub-real, but with the purchases in those stores the majority subsists, in my case it is 15% of my expenses .
How many hours do you spend searching for and buying these foods?
The search and purchase of food is the main task of any Cuban, from those who have the least to those who have the most. In my case, I am always prepared to stand in line, because there is what there is, but it is not enough for everyone. Almost every day I do something related to the search for food, I am not always successful, when I go to the stores in national currency it is almost all day, just like those in freely convertible currency (MLC). In the agro-markets you invest less time, but you still spend a couple of hours in them.
Do you use social networks to find out about supplies and prices in your area, for example, via Facebook or Telegram or WhatsApp groups?
No, I do not use networks for this purpose.
If you had to divide your diet, how would you describe your intake of animal protein, vegetable protein, carbohydrates? For example, how many times a week do you eat fish, red meat, white meat, dairy products, eggs, vegetables?
Almost always chicken from regulated stores, you stretch it and it's like a rubber band, you eat it almost every day. I eat so little fish that I can almost say never. Red meat almost the same, last month I bought two tubes of ground beef, very good quality, in MLC, very expensive, two meals for three people per tube. That is the beef I have eaten in the last two or three months. I have access to eggs because 10 per person come to the cellar monthly. About milk, milk is not sold here, only medical diets, which have already been removed until further notice, and pregnant women and children under seven years of age have a milk allowance. I drink milk when I can buy it outside and it is very, very expensive. The vegetables, you find them in the particular agritos [small private agro-market stalls] and they are priceless. Onion, garlic and tomato are only available to big pockets. Perhaps what I buy the most is cucumber, avocado… there are no other types of vegetables.
Do you consider that your family has enough intake of healthy food for its normal development?
No, not at all, we are eating what we can, when we can, carbohydrates and sugar are what keep us going.
Do you consider that in your family there are diseases related to the lack of nutrients or an unhealthy diet?
We are a very strong race, even bread with rubble nourishes us, so if we are sick with a shortage of nutrients, which is almost total, we don't even notice it.
Do you consider that, when shopping, you must decide between one basic food or another? Do you think you are buying food at a fair price?
The problem is not that you decide between one and the other, the problem is that you buy the one that exists. I have never been in that dilemma because there is no variety. It depends on what is meant by justice, I would say that food is far above purchasing power, that could be said to be unfair
Have your food preferences changed in the last two years? How?
I love to eat, it's the greatest of pleasures from my point of view, a pork escalope, a kidney, roast pork and chicken in sauce with potatoes, tuna, a good steak, mixed salads, that I must not have forgotten to make… the ice cream, the malt soda, the sweets. But I am a man who has adapted since I was a child, I remember when I was on scholarship that I made a drink with water and some candies inside the container. Now I am not telling you not to drink an imported beer, a Kermato [non-alcoholic drink based on tomato juice, clams and spices], a carbonated soft drink, not to eat a delicious barbecue one day, but it is sacrificed [he pronounces it high and lengthening the syllables]. I love sugar water, which sucks, but it helps to stave off hunger sometimes. Sometimes I eat chicken mince, which I don't like, sometimes I eat a little more bread, which isn't bad for sustaining, which I don't like, but I have no other choice.
What commodities do you find only or most often through the black market?
and we go to bed thinking about what we will get to eat. The child does not have breakfast, and for a snack, in the best of cases, he takes bread with oil if there is any, or plain bread and water.
My mom takes infusions of medicinal plants for breakfast and a little piece of bread and the same thing before bed because there is nowhere to buy milk or yogurt at an affordable price.
We suffer from uncontrollable stress because every day we get up and go to bed thinking about what we will get to eat.
Have you limited the quality or quantity of food for the benefit of another family member, in your opinion, more vulnerable?
My daughter and I have had to eat a piece of bread or rice and beans without anything else to be able to give her the protein and the best we can get to guarantee lunch and dinner for the children.Because in addition to the 11-year-old boy, we have a 15-year-old girl, who also has to eat.
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